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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 458

Part of Session 143: Language Change in Central Asia (Other abstracts in this session)

Kazakhstan: Language Issues in Business Activities

Authors: Shegebayev, Maganat
Submitted by: Shegebayev, Maganat (KIMEP, Kazakhstan)

Research is lacking on the important issue on how linguistic competence influences the ability to conduct business worldwide, particularly in a specific geographic region or industry.  The lack of linguistic and cultural awareness, or negligence towards it, can seriously impact a company’s performance and operations.  This becomes especially relevant in today’s globalized world, since as more and more businesses enter new markets, the workforce is also becoming more mobile and new communication technologies more widespread.  Businesses have begun to recognize the linguistic component as a key element in business communication, networking, decision making, marketing activities, professional development and in other related fields.  There is also a growing understanding that the inability to consider and value linguistic competence may cost a company its competitive advantage, its reputation, or in some cases, even its business.  This issue is especially crucial in places that are linguistically and culturally diverse, such as the European Union, the former USSR, and South East Asia, which are places that also have been experiencing substantial economic changes in the last two decades.  

This study aims to contribute to an understanding of the effects that linguistic competence has on the conduct of business and to provide a focus on one specific geographic area and industry in particular, the oil and gas industry of Kazakhstan, a dynamically developing and exceptionally diverse sector of the national economy.  This industry, marked by the presence of numerous multinational companies working together with local ones, is a cultural crossroads where issues of linguistic competence are particularly essential. 

It should be noted that the Republic of Kazakhstan is characterized by a wide variety of languages spoken.  Amongst them indisputably rise the two that have got the biggest influence and power in politics, business and other fields of life, Kazakh and Russian, which are also the languages of two biggest ethnic groups of the country.  Various sources give different assessment and realities of languages in polyethnic Kazakhstan today; but it is obvious that the current situation in the field of language utilization in Kazakhstan has been due to many factors, ranging from historic to political and sociocultural.  Now Kazakh is the state language with Russian being the official. 

The government of Kazakhstan has been putting a lot of effort to regulate the language issues, and particularly to bring back Kazakh from oblivion to make it function as a fully-fledged state language in public administration and business communication.  There is also a state strategy of “Triunity of Languages” that includes Kazakh, Russian and English, which should help Kazakhstani citizens respond to the challenges of the new globalized world.  Thus it is inevitable that those initiatives, as well as present day language realities, will have a growing influence on the activities of businesses operating in Kazakhstan, no matter which industry or field they belong to.